


break the fourth wall, it is around you

by JadeLupine



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Canon, Future, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 05:18:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3345026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeLupine/pseuds/JadeLupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and the Walls are down and people are embracing, and everybody is lost and lost and found and found. He searches for Levi in the crowd until they grab hands, then embrace, and one of them kisses the other in the middle of euphoric shouting, though for the rest of their lives neither of them is sure who kissed first. Hands find shoulders and mouth comes to mouth in daylight and blinding sunlight, before the monarchy and the government and children and vagabonds – they kiss, standing in the rubble of what once was Wall Sina, as though he had waited a lifetime to do so...</p>
<p>
  <i> In the aftermath of the Titans, Erwin (and the other veterans) are lost and floating </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	break the fourth wall, it is around you

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I wrote this primarily because there was far too much Ereri in the Eruri tag nowadays, and I really wanted some actual Eruri in it.   
> 2\. So many people have called Erwin a monster without feelings/Hitler etc etc, and I just wanted to show in a story that he isn't at a loss of feeling, it's more of a pushing aside.   
> 3\. I wanted to explore what the others have lost.   
> 4\. Mike is alive IM SORRY I LOVE MIKE  
> 5\. I've written Hange as a trans girl!

Levi does not remember exactly the moment when his eyes meet Erwin’s across the dim hissing of Titan gore, and the thought drifts lazily across his mind: Erwin Smith, you’d have made a good teacher. The final Titan is dead and their swords are raised, the gear is whirring and the recruits eyes are catching fire, Eren and Jean screaming and whooping, Mikasa with a quiet triumph that mirror’s Levi’s own beady eyes. But Levi, and Erwin and Hange and the few of them that are still alive and have been fighting since before these children were born, they were white and calm and fevered and only their hands shook, and even then, only a little.

.

 

Mike sits and calculates what they have lost thus far. He has lost his legs (at least, he reassures himself quietly that at least he still has his nose) and he has lost something else that gave his laugh a bark-like demeanor. He tries to remember. Hange has lost her stupid pet Titans, he thinks – and he remembers her excited face, how she was wholly absorbed, how everything burned down to those two Titans, he can still hear the roars. She has found herself, he thinks, in the middle of the bloodshed and gore and smells, she has found who she has become and who she always was – that it did not necessarily have to be who she was born as.

He thinks about Erwin and Levi (he could not think about them as two anymore), and how they both lost things physically – Erwin’s gaping right side and the absence of his salute, and Levi’s limp. He remembers too, how the smell of sex cling to the two recently, he imagines that their world is now each other – a two-person orchestra where they don’t read music notes and instead just love and fuck and breathe. They have found each other.

The kids haven’t lost too much, but in that sense they have lost everything. Marco, and so many kids’ parents, all crunched up and swallowed. They were what – he struggles to remember – fifteen, or sixteen? They have learnt to see the entire span of something in a moment and now Mike thinks about their future. How all their slashing and war strategy will do nothing, they will now have to read books and write letters and do arithmetic. He wonders who would teach them, these children who have lost everything but found friends.

He looks down at his hands, and at the mangled mess of what were once legs.

What have I found?

.

Perhaps, Levi thinks, what he is feeling now could be love. That it too, is a tightening in his chest and a lack of breath like an unwanted hug. He looks at Erwin, who is quietly burning his maneuver gear, and his strategy papers. He watches, standing next to him, as the Long Range formation slowly turns from ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Levi looks down to see the firelight flicker on the curve of Erwin’s jaw, and he does not see anything else, it is like a puzzle he does not comprehend.

“Erwin, why the fuck are you burning all this shit?” He asks, but something tells him he knows. “We could sell them.”

“No.” Erwin frowns, and looks at a paper before he looked up. “Look, Levi.”

“What?” Levi’s tone is terse and harsh, he has never liked wastage, and seeing perfectly good paper burning away gnaws at the same part of him that smarted when he broke teacups. “What is it?”

“The casualties from the civilian mission. Thousands.” He stares at the sheet and something runs through the room, cold and unfamiliar. Levi refuses to believe it is guilt. “Look at it, Levi, I –“

“What?” Levi snapped. “What, you want me to feel remorse? Is that it? You want me to feel guilty like you?”

Something is there in the room like clopping horses, burning ashes and ugly thoughts.

“I have held it down for so long –“ Erwin rises up, and falters slightly because balance was not on his side after he lost the arm. He pretends not to notice and Levi pretended not to notice, but it still whispered silently in the room.

“Guilt.” Levi scoffs. “Guilt. You send these people to their deaths, and you feel – guilt. Now.”

There is no response, and when Levi looks up, he sees Erwin leave the room, his sleeve flapping despairingly. Levi sinks down and watches the paper burn slowly – and the clopping of horses grows louder and the roaring in his ears rises and rises like an unpracticed orchestra in a too-large opera house. He tries to tell himself, he loves Erwin for his harshness and his grim mask, he loves him because he can make killing decisions without consulting fifty different men. That is why he loves Erwin, he screams in his head and the horses only rush faster. He remembers Isabel’s red pigtails and how he felt her hair under his fingers – smooth and spiky, and Farlan’s grin as he slapped cheeks of nobles. He recalls how they laughed and laughed every night in the Underground, smoke trailing into their loosely barred door, and he contrast that with the shut doors and tight smiles of everyone in the Survey Corps.

But does he want to return?

What has _he_ lost?

He has lost the distant memory of friends that he had clung to – ten, twelve, thirteen years ago. And what has he gained? He has money now, piles and piles, enough to buy a million teapots. And he has Erwin, and on a lesser note, Hange and Mike and the other older veterans, even Shadis and his gruff voice and Pixis, who smiled far easier nowadays. Is he willing to sacrifice this for the memory of Isabel’s glass-breakable laughter, and Farlan’s talent for rolling cigarettes?

He closes his eyes and lets himself cry.

_

Hange is with the children now, and sees Eren and Jean arguing over something as mundane as bed arrangement. The former’s anger was ingrained in his blood, running through him even after the Titan serum was removed, and he fought with Jean in a healthy passion, the two hurling insults and laughter and healthy, boyish words that had nothing to do with war and hurt and Titans. Mikasa and Armin sat around looking idly at books, and Hange notices something of Levi’s stance in how Mikasa peered at the books, narrowing her eyes at the difficult words, and instead choosing to run her fingers along the pictures.

Hange’s heart gives a sudden poke at her breast as she realizes why the images of Mikasa looked so familiar. It was when Levi had first joined the Corps, ten, maybe fifteen years ago – that this had last happened, he would run his fingers through books and his eyes would narrow, until Erwin offered to teach him to read. They stumbled through the alphabet, slowly and quietly, Levi mumbling his name, Erwin letting him learn how to write swear words as a reward. It was the happiest she had seen Levi look, as Erwin sat by and taught him to spell “motherfucker,” and she transposes the look onto Mikasa and Eren’s face, on Jean’s face and on Connie’s – the delight that came naturally to children.

And she thinks again, how Erwin patiently listened to Levi struggle with the later letters, and how neat his writing was as he outlined words and phonetics. She understands, finally – that Erwin was forced by this world to be a strategist and a military commander, but he was naturally a teacher.

She looks down at herself, and she remembers how she used to call herself “him”, and she feels sour in her mouth at the times she used to stand infront of the mirror, crying, and pinch her nipples to make them look like womanly breasts, to understand that what was between her legs did not erase from who she was. She understands that she does not have to speak in a higher voice, or fit into tight clothes to feel like a woman, because she has always felt so, and will always feel so.

She has lost Titans, and she has lost her perception – but she has gained herself.

_

Erwin stands before Shadis and the new monarch, his hand clasped behind his back in some resemblance to respect. Levi, Hange, Mike and three or four other veterans from the Corps and the Garrison stand behind him – and if an observer had watched closely, they would see that Levi had only one hand behind his back. Hange would understand, but Shadis wouldn’t. Mike sat in his wheelchair, wearing civilian clothes, as he feels disgusting in the uniform, the tights causing phantom pain in his mangled legs and the straps hanging uselessly.

“Now, the Survey Corps is to be officially dissolved. Erwin Smith has just sent in the documents and as it is confirmed that there are no more Titans, outside or within the Walls –“ the monarch stopped.

He pauses to let that sink in, and bows his head to let Erwin know that it was thanks to him.

“-that we feel that the Corps would now be a burden on a society that is working toward reform, and towards rehabilitation and toward linking of communities and breaking of boundaries. We feel that spending money on warfare and unnecessary military operations would be rendered a waste of rare money, and a cause of shortages.”

He pauses again, and Erwin thinks about how well this man spoke. You should always choose someone who speaks well. Then he closes his eyes. He himself had always spoken beautifully, but look at him – over a thousand deaths under his belt. But no – he must not falter, not now.

“-I understand, as do the reformed government, that the Veterans of the Survey Corps are wounded and war heroes, and as such, rehabilitation for the members who have lost limbs, and adequate monetary compensation will be provided from the Crown. Additionally, you will be allowed to join either the Military Police, or the Garrison – and take on paperwork if you have been infirmed.”

His eyes glance subconsciously to Erwin, and Hange can tell that the monarch is hoping he would get Erwin under him.

“You Majesty –“ Hange cuts in, her glasses flashing. “We have children in the corps. They’re fifteen, sixteen years old and I for one think it is _unfair_ and in-“

“Right.” The monarch cuts through Hange’s tirade. “I understand that everyone in the Survey Corps not present in this room is below the age of twenty one. They will not be allowed to join the Police, nor the Garrison. They will grow as we hear in reports of the Technological Age – get necessary education for the crafts they wish to undertake, and thus grow in that field. Do not worry for your children.”

“They can’t even read.” Mike cut in. “How are you going to put these kids who can’t read into your new institutes?”

“Then teach them, you worthless ass.” Shadis cut in.

“Now, now. Have you decided on what your future path will be?” The monarch stands up, and the Corps are glad that he does not have a belly bursting with food and neglect.

“I would like to join the Garrison.” Hange immediately agreed. “The Military Police’s standards and choices are a bit too shitty for me, so I’ll join the Garrison. There will be scouting expeditions and I’d like to learn about the new lands and territories beyond the walls.”

“I understand, Miss. Zoe.” The monarch bows, and turns to Erwin. Sweat stands on the blonde’s forehead and his arm tremors slightly. Mike wants to steady him but he cannot stand, and so, he raises his voice.

“Your Majesty, I would like to work with the Garrison, along with Hange Zoe. As it would be too much of a hassle for me to take on expeditions, I’ll take on paperwork, and reallocation and classification of new land, flora, and fauna.” Mike cuts in and gabbles quickly. “Would that be a sound decision?”

“Yes, Mr. Zacharius. After appropriate rehabilitation has been provided, we agree to let you serve in the Garrison.” The monarch agreed. “Erw---“

“I’ll be joining the Military Police, Your Highness.” Shadis’s gruff voice cuts in. “Training new recruits is probably what I do best nowadays.”

“As will I.” Pixis added. “Provided they’re over eighteen, that is.”

“Levi.” The monarch gives up on the barrage of answers that prevented Erwin from speaking. “You are labeled Humanity’s Strongest, with a kill count surpassing that of the other veterans combined. What will you do?”

I want to stay and make a teashop, he thinks. But he knows he does not.

“I will –“ He looks at Erwin, but his lover is staring straight ahead, his jaws clenched and sweat beading at his cheeks. “I will join the Military Police.”

“Fuck, Levi – haven’t you said a million times how much you hate them?” Hange burst out, her eyes widening behind her glasses. “What the—“

“What Hange means, Levi –“ Shadis glared at Hange, his eyeballs popping. “Is that you’ve always disliked the Police. Why now?”

“Well, I can make them un-shitty, can’t I?” Levi raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know anything except war, or fighting, and I can lick those asses into shape. You don’t need to give a fret about me.”

“Ah.” The king finally turns to Erwin. “And you, Erwin Smith?”

Erwin does not feel capable of answering, or even standing. He retreats to corners until the monarch begins to look frustrated, grin, and he closes his eyes. He feels a hand snaking around his, in plain sight, small and rough and _Levi_ , and it comes to Erwin; his centre. He is himself and he is loved, and he can make his own decision. He has killed and now he will never do so. He feels his lips twitch, and Levi, looking sideways, sees that the look on his face was devastatingly familiar. It was the look Levi himself had worn fifteen or so years ago on a battlefield that poured with rain.

“Erwin Smith, your decision?”

“I – “ He breathes in and air stuffs thick into his throat. “I won’t. I ca-“

He clears his throat and straightened.

“I wish to not join either the military police, the Garrison, nor the reformed government.”

“Due to?” The monarch looks fractured and appalled; he had counted on Erwin’s tactics and genius for future expeditions.

“Due to personal reasons, your Highness. Please understand my wish.”

“I- I recognize your appeal.”

-

When this impromptu meeting is adjourned, Erwin can feel eyes on his back, Hange’s and Mike’s and Levi’s and he wants to claw at the hurt in his stomach. Levi comes up to him, and matches his stride, until they are both in the stables and until they are sitting down among hay and straw and muck.

“Levi, you should leave. I wish to clean the horses.” Erwin mutters, but his voice is strong and bold.

“What are you going to do now, you shitty bastard?” Levi feels anger touching his voice. “You and your stupid guilt, what will you do now?”

“I will do what I wish.” Erwin rises without a falter, his eyes blazing, and Levi somehow sees why he likes riding horses, his elegance is similar to one. “Levi. Get out. I wish to clean the horses.”

“Should I come to you tonight?” Levi asks lazily. “Suck your cock and eat your ass?”

“Stop being so vulgar.”

“Thought you liked that.”

Levi leaves quietly, and he does not plan on returning to the stables, but as he walks further and further away, he realizes he has no idea where he is going. It must be some stupid, biological, pathological nonsense that gets him to wanting so badly to fill the emptiness within Erwin with himself. There is no logical reason to it – he just wants to see Erwin now, to see how very black his shadows were and how it overwhelms him. He wants to clean horses with him, and he wants to be fucked into bed, sweating from mucking out the stables.

He runs then, his hair flashing and flying, the sun blazing to a farewell behind them, and he stutters to a stop before the stables, and watches Erwin cry. His forehead on the horse’s flank, he was weeping as people do when they think there is nobody to see them, their face and voice cracking and gasping with grief, and Levi wants to die, he wants to burn himself and say farewell with the sun.

“Stop.” He whispers, and Erwin raises his head. Levi wishes he would put it back down.

“I don’t know what to do. You’re right, Levi. I don’t know what to do.”

Levi walks then, and holds Erwin from behind. He cannot bear to see him break, but he wants to provide comfort (he is inadequate and brittle at it, but it is there), and he holds Erwin, pressing chest to back as if they Levi’s arms were their tether.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

  
Perhaps someday, Erwin thinks, a little tiredly – how lovely it would be to pass things on, to teach, to be part of a creation and to see someone learn.

-

Today, they break the Walls. Maria, Rose and Sina stand tall and tangled and solid – and Erwin stands together with Levi – and looks at his lover with the clear-cut jaw and burning black eyes. Pert, opinionated, inky Levi- furious and shrapnel-like. He wants to wait for him for ages and ages, like Levi had waited for Erwin to become human again.

There are hammers passed around, and rams, and Erwin takes up one with his single arm, and he begins smashing at Wall Sina – when he was younger, it was what separated the rich brats like him from the general snotty nosed population. He beat at it like it did him an injustice, furious missiles from knotted arm, and he sees, through the corner of his eye, Levi with the same fire as he, slamming and smashing like he was sloughing through a storm. Cement and bricks rain down as the walls start to collapse, and Erwin feels un-bent, wholesome, and human – finally, he has found something that gives him whistling happiness.

“That’s Erwin Smith. The Savior.”

“Look at him breaking the walls, with only one arm, Hilde, look at him. He saved us all.”

“Look at Erwin Smith, Hans and Maria, he’s what you should be like when you grow up.”

“The Commander of the Corps! Savior of Humanity! He’s so cool!”

He feels some long and bitter hurt at how the tones of these people changed from what it had been – angry and accusing and loud, but still, nice words reverberate longer than ugly ones. But it was the children that were honest, and Erwin suddenly feels a flash of affection toward young, rash, ill-tempered Eren Jaeger, who had looked up to him from the age of six. It was children like that that made Erwin feel as if his dreams (not only of saving humanity, that was the dream he shared with his father) did not have to burn down to their bare bones. He thinks of children again, and some desire to pass things on, but he pushes it down.

And the Walls are down and people are embracing, and everybody is lost and lost and found and found. He searches for Levi in the crowd until they grab hands, then embrace, and one of them kisses the other in the middle of euphoric shouting, though for the rest of their lives neither of them is sure who kissed first. Hands find shoulders and mouth comes to mouth in daylight and blinding sunlight, before the monarchy and the government and children and vagabonds – they kiss, standing in the rubble of what once was Wall Sina, as though he had waited a lifetime to do so.

They make love later, Erwin slow and patient, and Levi’s liquid eyes spilling and simmering. This time as Levi comes over his stomach, he does not focus on the sensation of Erwin’s cock inside of him, or the taut weight of him as he thrusts, or his own opening feeling stretched and vibrant, nor Erwin’s large hand over his member. Instead, he thinks of how Erwin walked towards him, long ago on a rainy battlefield, slender and tall, his hair shimmering golden like a god, and some sort of light limping from a grey garden, how Erwin is the threads of the future clenched in his trembling fists (now _fist_ ), and Levi flames with orgasm and ecstasy.

He understands then, why they call Erwin “Savior,” because if Levi would ever pray, he would pray to Erwin.

Afterwards, they lie down under the patchwork haze of color and darkness, crumbling druidic kisses and touches, and Erwin remembers thinking that Levi looks like a dryad. He finds himself then, in that moment, naked and sweaty and half lidded eyes, he feels himself rising like a stirring of an old violin and he knows what he wants to do.

“Levi. I know what I want to do.”

“I know you do, shithead. You always find some stupid genius plan.”

“Yes.”

They kiss like keys fitting into locks.

“Yes.”

_

There are no more Walls.

Hange walks into the sunlight with a brigade of soldiers behind her. She looks up and down and she sniffs the air until tears fog her glasses, because she is the farthest they have ever been, and they have found hundreds of artifacts and clues and pieces of farming land. She looks straight ahead and narrows her eyes, and she smells salt, like salt used in cooking, and something wide and blue shimmering ahead. She blazes with happiness.

Mike, in his wheelchair powered by a new recruit, looks closely at a plant that Hange had newly discovered. It looked beautiful, like roses, but when he touched his nose to it, it burned. He writes notes on a piece of card about the scent and possible qualities – and he has never been happier.

Levi has almost completely reformed the Military Police. Instead of going after child thieves and pickpocket, they now look for high treason and gambles and fraud. They find homeless children and put them into special schools and shelters, and Levi (without telling anyone) goes in sometimes, and brushes girls’ hair into pigtails, and teaches boys to fight cleanly. He still can kill with his gear, but his kill count is now only two.

Erwin walks into the classroom and looks at the children arrayed in seats, most of them ten to twelve years old, and some of them (he thinks then, of Eren and Mikasa and Sasha, children who have been at war too long to read) fifteen or sixteen, but they all wanted to know. So Erwin opens a book of old poetry and starts reading slowly, waiting for the kids to ask him questions that he felt happier answering than devising scouting formations.

After the classroom empties, the children filing out with loud goodbyes, Levi’s small shadow cuts on the floor, and the two men embrace, watched by windows that will soon glint with stars.

Here, now, they are home.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted the breaking of the walls scene in there. I've always thought that Erwin could have bee a teacher like his father, if he didn't have to be a commander.
> 
> I really hope you've enjoyed reading this, and that you would leave me a comment as to whether or not you liked it. 
> 
> Thank you!


End file.
